Va. map flap's ripple effects

1/23/13 10:27 AM EST

Most of the congressional and legislative maps for the next decade have been drawn and are in place, but the decennial redistricting process isn’t completely finished.

As POLITICO’s Emily Schultheis writes on the home page, some Virginia Republicans are looking to tweak the state Senate district lines in a way that could have a longstanding effect on the politics of a closely watched swing state.

A Republican-led redistricting plan in Virginia — pushed through the state Senate by a one-vote margin while a Democratic senator was in Washington attending the Inauguration — is drawing outrage from Democrats and criticism from GOP Gov. Bob McDonnell.

The plan to redraw state Senate districts passed Monday after limited debate on a 20-19 party-line vote. It would create a new majority-minority district in the state but would change almost all existing district lines and force two senators — Democrat Creigh Deeds and Republican Emmett W. Hanger Jr. — into a single district.

The state Senate is split evenly, 20 Democrats and 20 Republicans, but Democratic Sen. Henry Marsh had taken Monday off to attend President Barack Obama’s Inauguration and was not in Richmond to vote. Democrats have vowed to sue if the legislation, which would most likely shift a handful of currently Democratic districts to heavily favor Republicans, is signed into law.

At the moment, partisan control of the evenly-divided Senate is what’s at stake.

But the move could have more far-reaching consequences. The repercussions of naked power grabs like this one tend to last for years, and the effects on the political ecosystem are often irreversible.

In Minnesota, the Democrats’ expulsion of a GOP House member in 1979 for campaign practice violations – a move that gave Democrats control of the state House by one seat – poisoned relations between the parties for the next decade. The 2003 GOP re-redistricting of the Texas congressional map had a similar effect there.

Then there’s the U.S. House, where Newt Gingrich’s rise can be traced back to the radicalizing effect of the contested 1984 election of Indiana Democratic Rep. Frank McCloskey. Then a little-known backbencher, Gingrich led a GOP walkout from the House chamber after McCloskey was seated despite a state recount that certified the Republican challenger as the winner.

Virginia’s top statewide elected Republicans, who have yet to embrace the redistricting scheme, seem to recognize its volatility.